


My (Dead) Best Friend

by foundmyhome



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Roommates, Supernatural - Freeform, Vampire/Human, Vampires, best friends being cute, or just non-smutty romance ig uess, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 00:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5025763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundmyhome/pseuds/foundmyhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan is a vampire and Phil is his clumsy, squeamish, and very human best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My (Dead) Best Friend

When Phil flicked the light on in the kitchen, he sighed heavily at the sight that greeted him. “You have really got to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen.”

He hopped onto the counter, fingers splayed against his thighs while his feet knocked against the cabinets. His teeth pressed into his bottom lip, gnawing nervously as Dan raised an eyebrow, rolling his eyes.

He walked closer to Phil, nudging his legs apart so he could stand between them. His eyes flickered across Phil’s face before reaching behind him, ripping a paper towel off the roll.

“You just expect me not to eat.” Dan’s tongue darted out of his mouth, some of the blood dripping down his lip collected. He wiped the rest of it off with the napkin before turning around and kicking lightly at the body sprawled across the floor. It groaned. “Besides, he’s not dead. Perhaps a little seriously injured.”

Phil’s shoulders sagged, lips parting as a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding burst from between them. “Oh. Brilliant.”

Living with a vampire had got to be the weirdest experience in Phil Lester’s life– and he got paid to make videos on the Internet about how weird his life was. But this one, the one that he couldn’t talk about because hello, everyone would think he was a nutter, had to take the cake.

Dan, the aforementioned vampire, had been Phil’s unlikely flatmate and best friend for a terrifyingly long time. He supposed he should be grateful Dan chose to snack on criminals instead of “good guys” as he called it. But, still– when the guy bleeding out on his floor moaned, his stomach dropped.

“You could maybe not eat here?” Dan’s fingers clenched around the countertop and the granite gave away to his strength. He briefly wondered how he was going to explain the dents to the landlord. Phil swallowed.

“In my own bloody kitchen?”

Phil nodded. “Right, sure. But it’s–”

“Off putting?” And the conversation should be terrifying, but a smile was tugging at the corners of Dan’s lips. He poured a cup of coffee, eyebrow raised as he waited for Phil to respond.

Phil felt bad that he grinned. “A little.”

Dan sighed, heavily and dramatic as he did most things, and lifted the guy up with one hand. His other curled around the mug of coffee. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, jackass.” The guy was badly bruised, but the tiny holes that would have given Dan away were discreetly hidden beneath the man’s jaw, near the bump of his adam’s apple. He sported a heavy beard that mostly covered the puncture wounds.

“You sure know how to pick them.” Phil reached out, tilting his mouth into a pout, and Dan shook his head a little before handing over the coffee. It was sweeter than Phil took his, as Dan, despite being undead and eating humans for sustenance, had a hell of a sweet tooth.

“This guy had a little girl tied down when I showed up.” His fingers tightened around the man and the perv whimpered. “Couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven.”

The same nausea that always rolls through him when Dan divulges why he chose his meals filled him. He glanced at the guy before looking away, pointedly; Dan dropped him back on the floor and Phil ignored the sound he makes when he crumbles.

“I forgot to tell you. I got fired from my job today.” Phil startled, raising an eyebrow. Dan passed him a box of cereal and leaned against the fridge, folding his arms across his chest before going into a large tangent about how he awkwardly sold a child spy an axe, despite knowing it was a child spy. Phil went through half the box of cereal, spitting most of it on the floor when he erupted with laughter.

To be honest, Phil had to admit that the worst part about living with Dan wasn’t that he was a vampire, or that he left his victims and his socks haphazardly around the apartment, or even that he ate all of the candy every time: it was that Dan couldn’t be seen in recordings and therefor couldn’t be in any of his videos. His best friend was bloody hilarious.

—

“Philip, get your arse in here right now!”

Dan Howell was, admittedly, a bit of a prat.

He blamed it on dying when he was twenty, his indestructible and passive aggressive young adult attitude permanently his defining features. He also was stuck with this excessively long fringe that was barely even in style when he got it in 2011, let alone in 2015.

His best friend, the silly human, had a good fringe. It fell right above his eyes and accented his strong jaw; Dan thought that if he could, he’d have a similar cut.

“The pharmacy will be closed if we don’t leave right now!”

Phil fell through the door, panting, one arm through his ridiculous metallic jacket. They both agreed that it made him look like an astronaut, though Dan didn’t say it with half as much enthusiasm and Phil left out the mocking lilt.

“We can’t skip the pharmacy, we need to get more iron supplements!” Dan rolled his eyes. He didn’t know any other vampires, but he’s fairly certain that they didn’t have bumbly flatmates that forced him to give his meals iron pills after he drank their blood.

“Then you need to hurry up.”

The summer heat was pouring through the concrete walls and already the setting sun was warming him. He liked London the best, out of all the places he’d been. The rain and cloud coverage made it easier for him to still experience the sun’s burning heat in a safe way. The people teetered between obnoxiously polite and disgusting rude. There were enough twenty-somethings with bad attitudes and pale skin that he didn’t stick out much, unless Phil was giggling too loudly in his animal prints. And, really, if people were going to be looking at them, he didn’t really blame them for being drawn to Phil. He certainly was.

“I’m ready, Dan!”

Ready was a bit of an understatement. His sneakers were untied and his pants were unzipped, the legs a bit too short and showing the unmatched patterns of his socks. His hair, though, was immaculate and his bright blue eyes were covered by contacts.

Dan sighed, but the sound came out more affectionate than annoyed. “Zip up your pants, Philly.”

“Don’t call me Philly, Danny.”

Dan wasn’t used to having a best friend. He hadn’t really been a people person when he was alive and, unsurprisingly, being dead didn’t do a ton for your social life. He certainly hadn’t ever imagined dying, waking up again, and still dealing with the monotony of capitalism and rent payments and social interactions. But, as it was, life went on; even if yours didn’t.

They climbed down the stairs, Dan’s hand hesitating behind Phil’s hood because his clumsy, fragile friend tended to fly down the stairs as if he wouldn’t break if he tripped. “So, we’re completely out of Ribena and Maltesers, again.”

Phil shook his head. “Really, though, I thought having an undead BFFL would mean I wouldn’t have to share my food, but you eat more than I do most of the time!”

“You eat all my cereal,” Dan pointed out.

“You don’t need it!”

“If food was just about sustenance, chocolate wouldn’t exist and I wouldn’t want to.”

“Fair point,” Phil wretched the door open and peaked out at the street. It seemed safe enough, but he walked further, hands spread to feel the air. Clouds covered the sky and the sun was close to setting completely, so he grinned and ushered Dan forward.

“You don’t have to test the air every time we leave, you know.”

“If you burned up, who would I beat at Mario Kart?”

“That was one bloody time, Lester!”

“One glorious, beautiful, amazing-”

“Oh, shut it, you spoon.”

—–

Phil groaned, his shoulders trembling beneath the heavy blanket Dan had draped over him. His head was swirling and spinning, a heavy pounding vibrating through his skull and chest. He was fairly certain he was experiencing death. He moaned the sentiment aloud.

His vision blurred for a moment- or, no, Dan blurred. He came into the room, quickly, his body a quick burst of smeared colors as he raced across the flat to Phil’s bed. He was there, suddenly, his face creased while his hands pat at his forehead worryingly. Dan rarely used his speed, rarely showed that he was anything less than human. Phil was almost touched that Dan was so concerned that he was losing his concentration.

“It’s just a cold, Dan.” Phil started to sit up, but Dan shot his hand out to rest on his shoulder. He struggled under his touch, but remained slouched in bed, unable to maneuver himself when Dan’s strength pressed him down.

“Sure, starts off as a cold, ends up as you being cold in a mother friggin’ casket.” He muttered, hands still messing with the blankets and brushing against Phil’s forehead. He frowned when Phil nuzzled closer to the coldness.

“I’m just a little ill, Dan. No need to be worried.”

Dan nudged him and Phil scooted over. He dropped his head on Dan’s shoulder and Dan intertwined their fingers.

He had learned, after their first few months of living together, that Dan was incredibly terrified by death. It almost made him laugh, at first, because how could someone who beat death be afraid of it?

But he was. Anytime Phil was ill, or injured, or even particularly careless when climbing down stairs or crossing the streets, Dan would appear, angry and cuddly and concerned.

Maybe it was because he had watched others die. Maybe it was because he knew firsthand how terrible it was. Phil didn’t know and Dan never offered to explain. But Phil was hot and cold at the same time and his throat hurt and Dan’s hand on his made it easier to think and to breathe.

“I want you to get better. PJ’s release party is tomorrow night.”

Dan hated going to events alone. He didn’t click with others, not the way he did with Phil. It didn’t help any that Phil was the only one who knew the truth.

“I’ll be better,” Phil promised. He thought it would have sounded more convincing if he wasn’t wheezing while saying it.

“Or I’ll stay here to take care of you,” Dan laughed.

Phil closed his eyes, curling slightly more into Dan and the blankets around him. He hated how exhausted being ill made him. He hated how miserable he became. Phil liked to think that Dan would be worse, would complain constantly and take sweet satisfaction in Phil getting sick because of him. Of course, he wouldn’t know, because one of Dan’s biggest flaws is that he doesn’t have any.

“You should eat!” Dan jolted, his stiff body richoteing out of the bed. Phil blinked at him.

He disappeared, another blur of supernatural excitement that made Phil queazy.

Phil knew not to call after him or, God forbid, follow. Dan was more mothering than his own mum when he wasn’t feeling well and he knew he would be beside himself if Phil “exerted” himself.

Instead, he slumped into the pillows and clenched his eyes closed. He was nearly asleep when the door squeaked open.

Dan came back in, his regular, shuffling pace this time, with his long arms extended out and a steaming bowl.

“Soup,” he muttered. Phil grinned.

“Is it-”

“That disgusting clam chowder? Of course, but you really should let me make you some chicken noodle or tomato or something. I mean, this can’t actually make you any better.”

Phil shuffled until he was leaning against the bed frame. Dan plopped on the end of the bed near his feet and grabbed a pillow, setting it on Phil’s lap. He balanced the soup on the cushion before handing Phil the spoon.

“You make fun of me but at least my food is actually food.”

Dan groaned. “Stop the abuse, Phillip. It’s not my fault that people are so tasty.” He wiggled his eyebrows and dropped his jaw so his fang stick slightly out. They were subtle, no more than large incisors when he’s not trying.

Phil shook his head, smiling. He sipped at the soup, his favorite, and when it dribbled down his chin, Dan pulled a napkin from his pocket.

“You’re an absolute mess.”

Phil stuck his tongue out. Dan huffed out a laugh and laid down on the bed, his flop making the soup splash out of the bowl and onto the comforter.

“You make me a mess.”

Dan blinked up at him, mock-innocence drawing the expression on his face.

Phil ate his soup slowly, careful to keep his hand steady even as it shook and his head swayed from sleepiness. Dan pretended to be involved in his phone, thumb pushing down the screen as he scrolls, but his eyes flickered towards Phil with so much frequency he nearly suggested Dan just stare at him like he clearly wanted to.

Phil wouldn’t have said that he had a shortage of people to care for him. He had his mum and his dad, he had Martin, PJ and Chris, all of his other Uni and YouTube friends. He never thought of himself as alone.

That, he guessed, is why Dan always surprised him. He hadn’t felt lonely before Dan, but now that he had him, he realized that being lonely didn’t happen because of an absence of people. It was from the absence of comfort, of that feeling of home. It was from the absence of someone to make you feel better when you didn’t know you needed to.

For Phil, lonely was the absence of Dan. And maybe it was because he wasn’t feeling well or because he knew that the smell of clam chowder made Dan faintly ill or maybe it was because Dan really was just his best friend, but he was really thankful in that moment to have his weird, self-aware vampire peeking glances at him between sips of soup.


End file.
